September 06, 2004
Purple Martin ha bloody ha
Life is so much less stressful now I look for my own rares more than I check my my pager (this process being hastened by the Bad Lurcher irretrievably chewing up said pager in January). So there's a Great Knot somewhere in north England? Big deal. Mongolus Lesser Sandplover? Yeah yeah, big deal, seen one, yawn... Yellow-breasted Buntings on Unst? Okay, am feeling a slight sense of an itch I could scratch, but only so far as wanting to redouble my efforts to find my own at home, and dream about planting a nice patch of oats next year. But otherwise... who cares?!
Purple Martin on the Western Isles? >> shudder << Found that on my desktop this morning (incidentally, why would anyone bother with paying Rare Bird Alert for the bird news when they kindly publish it for free as a teaser online down to county level, which is enough to see whether further investigation is needed? Just a thought...). Anyway, Purple Martin. Hmm.
There was a time when I'd have done a sicky for that, and been heading straight there from the south. No longer. But I do feel a bit yearnsome for it! But hey, if there then why not here? Went out last night to pick mushrooms (yum) and found three Swifts on the south-east cliffs feeding in the dusk. So near and yet so very, very far!
Posted by Stercorarius at September 6, 2004 01:08 PMWhat a cracker by the looks of it but there will be more. The first Cliff Swallow seemed to come out of nowhere, now they're seen every few years.
Posted by: tony at September 9, 2004 08:29 AM